On May 28, Krakow Film Festival opens with the documentary film “Beksińscy. Album wideofoniczny” by Marcin Borchardt – an authentic, intimate record of the fate of the Beksiński family. The script of the film is based on the best-selling biography by Magdalena Grzebałkowska, entitled “Beksińscy. Portret podwójny.”The opening ceremony of the festival and the world première of the film, with the participation of the film-makers, is held in the cinema Kijów.Centrum.

“In Krakow, we have a soft spot for films which point the camera at a family, because it is here that the greatest amplitude of tensions occurs, often concentrated in one take. Familiar relationships between the film-maker and his close ones allow greater honesty. These documentary films tend to be the truest of the true, because nobody plays any roles. And if the person who stands behind the camera is – like here – an amateur film-maker, there can be no question of manipulation on his part, because the final cut will belong to another artist who, many years later, will create his own film out of the exceptional wealth of the material,” says the director of the festival, Krzysztof Gierat.

“BEKSIŃSCY. Album wideofoniczny” is a feature-length documentary film, made out of sound, film and photography archival materials, most of them come from the private archive of Zdzisław Beksiński and they have not been shown publicly before. For almost fifty years, the painter meticulously documented his life and the life of his closest family. He kept a diary, wrote letters, took photos, and passionately filmed everyday events. From these materials emerges an extremely complex image of the relationships between the artist and his wife Zofia and his son– the charismatic radio journalist and translator– Tomasz.

The successes of the film “The Last Family” by Jan P. Matuszyński and the book “Beksińscy. Portret Podwójny” by Magdalena Grzebałkowska contributed to the increased interest in the story of the Beksiński family. The documentary film by Borchardt gives voice to the protagonists themselves, creating a unique opportunity to get to know the Beksiński family through authentic materials, for the first time presented in such an extensive form. Although Beksiński filmed mundane activities and events, from the recorded conversations emerges a non-obvious portrait of the family, far removed from any oversimplifications, with the relationship of two difficult characters: the father and the son in the foreground.

Marcin Borchardt– script-writer, director and film expert. Author of documentary films, advertisements, music videos, television programmes. Lecturer of short feature film at Gdynia Film School, and of avant-garde and experimental cinema, contemporary documentary film at the University of Gdansk. The author of the monograph “Awangarda muzyki XX wieku. Przewodnik dla początkujących.”

The film’s producer is DAREK DIKTI Biuro Pomysłów with the financial support of Polish Film Institute, Gdynia Film Fund and TVP2.